all in the family
by celeria
Summary: Dawn and Kristy come out to their siblings. Not everyone is happy about it. DawnKristy, implied SsamStacey


**1. Charlie**

He tells Mom and Watson and Kristy that he doesn't mind, but that's not it, exactly. Oh, he's not upset. His little sister can kiss whoever she wants. And he's not disgusted. He's going to college next year, and he's sure he'll meet girls and guys who are gay and straight and bisexual, and he's fine with that.

It's just – well, she's his little sister. Karen and Emily Michelle count, but not the same way; they didn't grow up with them, when it was the Thomases against the world. Charlie and Sam and Kristy did their own laundry, and Charlie cut their hair, and taught Kristy how to catch grounders on the first hop, and that's how he remembers his little sister, like a six-year-old he needed to protect. Only now she's thirteen, and she insists she doesn't need protection anymore. Doesn't need anyone looking out for her, holding her hand when she crosses the street, reminding her to hold her glove up so the ball doesn't hit her on the nose. She hasn't thought of the hard things like discrimination and marriage laws and people beating her up because she's gay, and Charlie worries about that, worries about Kristy. She's tough, but not that tough.

On the other hand, she's thirteen, and maybe that's old enough that she doesn't need to be protected anymore. Maybe this means Charlie and Sam and Kristy are all equal now. They can all stand on their own, they can all pitch a fastball and slide into home and catch a pop fly, and hey, they all like girls.

**2. Sam**

He just kind of shrugs and punches Kristy on the shoulder when she sits them down on the couch, him and Charlie and Mom and Watson, when she tells them she's gay. It doesn't really make any difference to him. The guys won't care if his sister's a lesbian; they let her join in baseball and soccer games, and they respect her skill with a glove. Hell, they'd probably think it was hot that she kisses girls.

He loves his mother and Watson, but boy, they sure make a big deal out of things sometimes. Things like Watson's heart attack and Patrick getting married are big deals. Things like Karen eating only raw carrots for a month and the Junk Bucket needing a new battery and his sister liking girls are not. Mom is glaring at him in a way that says he's being rude and should apologize to his sister, but he doesn't see what he needs to apologize for. She doesn't seem to mind, either; in fact, she looks relieved that at least one of them is acting normal.

Maybe he'll rent a U-Haul truck tomorrow and give the driver her name. If she's going to go around telling people, she's going to need to take a joke. Sam grins to himself.

**3. Mary Anne**

She can't believe Dawn just came out and said it, but she's not surprised, either. Dawn and Kristy have been spending a lot of time by themselves, sleepovers with just the two of them, or going downtown for a Coke after school, and more than that, they like it. It seems like a long time ago now that Kristy was jealous of Mary Anne having another best friend. Now Kristy and Dawn get along great, Kristy likes Dawn a lot, Dawn likes Kristy a lot, and sometimes – Mary Anne knows this isn't fair – but sometimes it seems like Dawn likes Kristy and Kristy likes Dawn more than either of them likes Mary Anne.

Really, she's not upset about it. She knows it's good for them to be friends. Maybe it's even good for them to be dating, maybe it's good that they have something she's not part of. After all, she's been friends with Kristy forever, and Dawn can't be part of that. And she and Dawn are stepsisters and will always be stepsisters, and Kristy can't be part of that. So maybe it's fair that Dawn and Kristy are together and she can't be part of that.

It doesn't change anything, she tells herself. It doesn't change anything at BSC meetings and pizza parties, at sleepovers and weddings, at babysitting jobs when Nicky knocks a GI Joe down the disposal and Margo paints herself and Claire with bright red finger-paint and Adam, Jordan, and Byron all trample through a patch of poison ivy and come home with pink legs and arms and hands. It doesn't change that she's best friends with Kristy and that she's Dawn's sister. It shouldn't change anything.

But just the same, she keeps to herself for a few weeks, with her bedroom door closed, trying to sort out how she feels.

**4. Jeff**

The telephone is making crackling sounds and at first Jeff thinks he's hearing wrong, when Dawn calls and tells him that she's – well, he can't even use that word. It's too weird. Dawn, his sister, is a – a – she's – um? She's too pretty. She looks like a girl, she has long hair and she wears skirts and jewelry, and she likes boys, he knows she likes boys, because she had a boyfriend back before Mom and Dad got divorced (of course, he didn't like Luke, because Luke used to thump him on the head, but that's not important). So how can she be – how can she be – how can she like _girls_?

She offered to put Mom on the phone so Mom could talk to him about it, but he tells her no thanks. He doesn't want to hear Mom say it's okay, that this doesn't mean anything, that Dawn's still his sister and she loves him. Mom would tell him that he's behaving badly, that she and Dad raised him to accept all people, and he can't listen to that right now. It's too weird. He promises to call Dawn next week and hangs up the phone.

It's not that he doesn't love her. It's not that it's weird – well, okay, it is weird. Is this a Connecticut thing? He bets if she were still here, at home, with Dad, where she should be, then she wouldn't be saying she's a – he grits his teeth – _lesbian_.

Jeff grabs his windbreaker and heads to the garage to grab his bike. By the end of a three-mile ride, he decides that he's okay with it if Dawn's a … a … if Dawn's gay, and he should call her and tell her that. He's just glad that she's all the way in Connecticut if she's going to be gay.

**5. David Michael**

Lately Mom and Watson have been tiptoeing around, whispering stuff and saying stuff and telling secrets, and he thinks it's not fair. From the way they look at Charlie and Sam and Kristy, he thinks that means that Charlie and Sam and Kristy already know, and that's not fair either. He asks Charlie to tell him what's going on, and Charlie, instead of saying "Sure" like he usually does, tells him to ask Mom. He asks Sam why everyone's acting so weird, and Sam tells him it takes one to know one, buster (whatever that means). He asks Kristy if Mom and Watson have a secret, and she says no. Is Kristy lying to him? Kristy _never_ lies to him!

He finally goes straight to Watson, one day when Mom's still at work and Watson's working in the garden with Nannie, and Watson tells him to go ask his mother. So he waits in the driveway until Mom gets home from work. Mom takes his hand, which is something she doesn't usually do anymore, and goes up to his room and closes the door and sits on his bed. Does he know what gay means, she wants to know.

David Michael wiggles. "A boy in my class says gay means being a fag."

Mom says that that is definitely not what gay means. _Gay_ isn't a bad thing, but it means when two girls, or two boys, love each other and want to be together the way Mom and Watson are, or the way Sam and Stacey are, or the way Karen and Ricky Torres are.

"I don't know Ricky," David Michael reminds her, feeling a little annoyed that Mom's talking about his stepsister when she should be telling him what's going on. "And what does that have to do with anything, anyway?"

"David Michael, this is a little bit hard for me to talk about with you," Mom says, staring at her hands, and David Michael is even more confused. Mom's hands aren't dirty, and anyway, since when does she say that things are hard to talk about? Mom believes in talking about everything. "Being gay isn't a bad thing, but it can be a little strange at first, and it's perfectly normal to feel strange about it … honey, your sister is gay."

David Michael has no idea what she's talking about, because didn't Mom just say that gay was when two girls liked each other, and Karen definitely doesn't like any girls, and – wait a second. "Kristy?"

"Uh-huh." Mom's looking at him now instead of her hands. "Honey, do you have any questions?"

David Michael shrugs. He knows what Brian Cordon in his class says about fags, and he knows that when people say _lesbian_ the girls in his class giggle, but it doesn't sound like such a big deal when Mom says all that. He loves Kristy and wants to be just like Kristy – he'd like to be as good at baseball as she is – and if Kristy wants to be with a girl, then that sounds okay. Maybe he should think about liking a girl, too.

He wonders if this is really the big secret that Mom and Watson and everyone have been whispering about. Maybe it's something else. Maybe they're going to Disneyland this summer.

**6. Karen**

_She_ already knows what gay means, she tells Daddy proudly. Ms. Coleman talked about it in school, when they read a story in class about a girl who had two mommies, and Ms. Coleman asked if they knew anyone who had two mommies or two daddies or someone who was a mommy with another mommy or a daddy with another daddy. There were only two people who did, Natalie Springer and Hank Owens. Hank's daddy's friend was a homo, he said loudly. Ms. Coleman told him that we didn't use words like "homo." And Natalie's aunt was a – she had to whisper the word, and her face turned red behind her glasses, but Ms. Coleman said that was okay, lesbian was not a bad word.

She was jealous that Natalie and Hank got to say something in class and she didn't, and she and Nancy and Hannie talked about it on the playground at recess. They agreed that if they ever met anyone who had two mommies, or anyone who was gay, then they'd tell each other right away.

So when Daddy and Kristy sit down with her and talk about it, and Kristy explains that she likes Dawn the same way Karen likes Ricky, Karen can't wait! She's the first of them to know a real-live gay person. Wait till Hannie and Nancy and Ms. Coleman hear!

**7. Andrew**

He's confused when Daddy tells him that he wants to talk to him. Did he do something wrong? He starts crying before they even get to the couch. Daddy tells him to shh, shh, he's not in trouble, but Andrew doesn't believe him. Sometimes Mommy and Daddy and Seth and Elizabeth say he's not in trouble, but they still want to talk about stuff he did bad. That feels like being in trouble to Andrew.

Daddy gives him a Kleenex and a cup of grape juice before he starts talking him. He says that gay means boys like boys and girls like girls. He says that Daddy and Mommy and Elizabeth and Seth know lots of gay people and are good friends with them and like them very much. He says that it's okay to be gay. And then he says that Kristy is a gay person.

Now Andrew's even more confused. He thought he knew what gay meant, because Karen told him all about it after school one day. But she talked about mommies and daddies and having two mommies or two daddies and Kristy's not a mommy, is she? She's a babysitter, but not a mommy. Do gay people have to be mommies and daddies? What about if you're not a mommy or a daddy?

So he asks Daddy about that, and Daddy smiles a little and says Karen was confused. Gay people, Daddy says, can be mommies and daddies, but there are lots of gay people who don't have kids. Kristy's a gay person who doesn't have kids. Does that make sense?

Andrew says yes, but he's still confused about some things. Does that mean Kristy likes Karen and Emily Michelle and Elizabeth more than him and David Michael and Charlie and Sam and Daddy? Does that mean she won't kiss him goodnight anymore after she reads _Where the Wild Things Are_? Does that mean she won't want to baby-sit for him anymore?

He starts crying again, and Daddy has to go get him another Kleenex. Daddy's saying stuff about how they still love Kristy, and it's okay if she's a gay person, and nothing's going to change, it's all going to be okay. But Andrew doesn't know how to tell Daddy what he's afraid of, and so he sits on the couch and cries.

**8. Emily Michelle**

Kristy tries to sit down with her littlest sister and talk to her about all of this, but telling Emily Michelle she's gay is sort of like telling Shannon the puppy she's gay, and Shannon the puppy was the first person Kristy told. Kristy pulls Emily onto her lap and tells her what gay means, and Emily gurgles. Kristy tells Emily that she's a lesbian, and Emily crawls across the floor to play with one of those plastic cubes with small shapes that go in through special holes in the sides. Kristy asks Emily if she's okay with Kristy being gay and dating Dawn, and Emily hands her a block. "'Tar," she says, meaning _star_.

"Thank you," Kristy replies, pushing the little yellow star inside the red plastic box. She gets it on the first try and Emily Michelle's eyes go wide with glee, and then she claps her hands, proud of her sister.

Kristy watches Emily struggle with the moon-shaped block and thinks that Emily's reaction is a lot more palatable than everyone else's. Charlie's so negative, reminding her about things like "You have no legal protection, Kristy, do you know that? If you ever decide to settle down, you can't buy a house, you can't claim exemptions on your taxes, you can't visit your girlfriend in the hospital" and Sam just thinks the whole thing is a big joke. Oh, not that he thinks she doesn't know what he's talking about, but he certainly sees a million opportunities for lesbian jokes. Mary Anne has been uncharacteristically quiet, barely made herself available for either of her two best friends, and Karen's told most of McLelland Road that her big sister is going to be a mommy with another mommy. Andrew just stares at her with wide blue eyes whenever she comes into the room, and David Michael – well, she certainly can't fault David Michael, except somehow he's decided that they're going to California for summer vacation, and where did he get _that_ idea?

Sometimes, Kristy thinks, life would be a lot easier if she were an only child.

But that's before Dawn comes over to see if Kristy wants to go over to the practice fields and teach her a little more about baseball, and Charlie offers to drive them, and David Michael and Karen and Andrew want to come practice with them, and Sam tosses them all bottles of water. Mom's holding Emily Michelle on her hip and she and Watson are waving from the window, and Kristy thinks, as the Junk Bucket rolls down the driveway, that maybe families aren't so bad after all.

**fin.**


End file.
